Firewood Market

   / Firewood Market #1  

Soggy Bottom Outdoors

Gold Member
Joined
Feb 12, 2012
Messages
413
Location
Brandenburg ky
Tractor
2013 john deere 5075E and others
I just came for dinner (the noon meal in Kentucky). I had been out delivering 3 ricks of wood to Aunt Peggy. I was just curious as to how things are done in other parts of the country. The wood I delivered was 99% red oak with a little poplar. A poplar limb fell out when I cut the tree. The wood wasn't "seasoned" but the tree was dead when I cut it. Locally a rick will measure 4' X 8' X 16"-18". It is normally considered, but is not, a half cord. The reason for this is most stoves in my area will not handle a 24" stick of wood hence 16-18". Firewood here is rarely sold by the cord, just by the rick. Most folks who heat with wood use 15-20 ricks a season. I sold her the wood, delivered and stacked in her wood shed for $30 a rick. She lives less than 5 miles from me. Normally it would have been $40-50. The firewood of choice is ash but it's getting harder to come by. Red and white oak are very popular as well as hickory and cherry. Trash wood are popular, beech, gum, sycamore, maple, locust, sassafras, persimmon, pine, cedar and cottonwood. As a curious point I cut a little wood for my wifes grandmother years ago. She had a little "Ben Franklin" style wood stove in the parlor (living room) but it could only take a 12-14" stick of wood. It takes forever to cut wood in 12'' pieces! Tell me a little of how you guys do it.
 
   / Firewood Market #2  
A cord is 48"W x 4'H x 8'L
A rick is a third of a cord, which would be 16"W x 4'H x 8'L just as you described.
In cold winters I burn 6 cords, which would be 18 ricks which is also just as you described.
Last winter I barely went through 4 cords and this year I have only burned 1.5 cord. Very mild weather.
 
   / Firewood Market #3  
$150 for a full cord of oak cut, split and delivered is a pretty decent price here. A cord can cost as much as $200. Sometimes there is a two cord minimum, and be within so many miles, to get the best price.
 
   / Firewood Market #4  
I just came for dinner (the noon meal in Kentucky). I had been out delivering 3 ricks of wood to Aunt Peggy. I was just curious as to how things are done in other parts of the country. The wood I delivered was 99% red oak with a little poplar. A poplar limb fell out when I cut the tree. The wood wasn't "seasoned" but the tree was dead when I cut it. Locally a rick will measure 4' X 8' X 16"-18". It is normally considered, but is not, a half cord. The reason for this is most stoves in my area will not handle a 24" stick of wood hence 16-18". Firewood here is rarely sold by the cord, just by the rick. Most folks who heat with wood use 15-20 ricks a season. I sold her the wood, delivered and stacked in her wood shed for $30 a rick. She lives less than 5 miles from me. Normally it would have been $40-50. The firewood of choice is ash but it's getting harder to come by. Red and white oak are very popular as well as hickory and cherry. Trash wood are popular, beech, gum, sycamore, maple, locust, sassafras, persimmon, pine, cedar and cottonwood. As a curious point I cut a little wood for my wifes grandmother years ago. She had a little "Ben Franklin" style wood stove in the parlor (living room) but it could only take a 12-14" stick of wood. It takes forever to cut wood in 12'' pieces! Tell me a little of how you guys do it.

When I was a teenager I worked on a farm and one of the major jobs was splitting firewood. I really grew to dislike splitting firewood bent over a log splitter, hour after hour, day after day on bottom land right along the Ohio River. This was in Ky. We sold wood by the cord and rick but most people bought by the rick. In my area of NC, a truck load of hardwood is $50-100. I don't think I have ever heard anyone use the word rick here. Well, me, maybe. :laughing::laughing::laughing:

When cutting and splitting wood it was 16-18 inch lengths though we had one guy that wanted 24 inch long pieces.

I wish I could remember what we charged for wood back then. Seems like $35 for a rick delivered and $55/65 a cord.

The farm was on land next to the river and the road was pretty steep getting away from the river. One year the guy I worked for rented a semi to haul out the wood. Thank goodness I did not work for him then because the semi could not pull the trailer up the grade! They had to unload some wood to get the semi out of the bottom land. From then on, he rented a UHaul that we filled up to take the wood back to the city. He had some land where we stored the wood before delivery to buyers but that house and land seem to have been lost to development.

Later,
Dan
 
   / Firewood Market #5  
Out West here it is almost all softwood, typically various types of pine. Occasionally you can get hardwood in the form of apple or cherry from orchards being developed, driven out of business by Chinese competition, etc. In either case this time of year it runs around $200 per cord but varies +-$25 based on the type of wood. In the summer it is closer to $150. In this area you can also get Juniper which is fairly hard for a softwood. The Boise area is essentially desert greened up by irrigation. Pine comes from the higher elevation mountains and Juniper comes from the desert mountains.
 
   / Firewood Market #6  
When I was a teenager I worked on a farm and one of the major jobs was splitting firewood. I really grew to dislike splitting firewood bent over a log splitter, hour after hour, day after day on bottom land right along the Ohio River. This was in Ky. We sold wood by the cord and rick but most people bought by the rick. In my area of NC, a truck load of hardwood is $50-100. I don't think I have ever heard anyone use the word rick here. Well, me, maybe.

I ran a firewood business for a few years in high school. All the splitting was done by hand swinging a splitting maul... I would have loved a powered splitter but probably way too slow for most pine. Usually Lodgepole and the like will split with one good whack of a splitting maul. If you got into some really big, knotty Fir it could involve splitting wedges etc. Maybe even chainsaw big rounds in halves or quarters before they could be split the rest of the way by hand. Living in a mountain valley firewood was reasonably close so $65 per cord cut, split and delivered was the going rate.
 
   / Firewood Market #7  
Cord hard wood split deliver w/in 15miles $170-$225,season dry $$$'s more this area.

Plastic bag 6 pieces at store $7...yikes.
 
   / Firewood Market #9  
Never heard of a "rick" before. Maybe it's because I'm from NY. Here I've only heard it called a "face cord". Guess I learned something new..
 
   / Firewood Market #10  
In SE Virginia, the going rate on craigslist is $160-$180 for a full cord of oak, delivered.
Keith
 
 
Top